The great cities of the world are best thought of in terms of flora and fauna. San Francisco is a hyacinth, Rio de Janeiro a bromeliad, Cario a flowering cactus, Detroit a burning bush. London, by contrast, most closely resembles a Venus Flytrap.-Joe Queenan
I just finished reading Queenan Country, about writer Joe Queenan's travels around Great Britain and why he likes the people of Great Britain while, at the same time, insulting them at every turn. Queenan's Country is filled with such sites as The Second Smallest Cathedral in England and The Worse Musical of All Time. He also prattles on rather a lot about Tribute Bands, which I have to admit, have always been a bit of a mystery to me as well. Elvis impersonators, sure why not, but fifty year old nobodys pretending their the 20 year old Beatles? I've never really liked that.
Anyway-Joe Queenan spends a bit of his book in London, mainly talking about how much he hates the likes of Elton John, Paul McCartney, and Andrew Lloyd Weber, but occasionally mention actual sites in the great city. So I thought I would look a few of them up and see what I could find out about them.
The Widow's Son-This curiously named pub has a sad story. In a cottage on this site lived a widow, her only son a sailor. He was due to return home on Good Friday and asked his mother to bake him some hot-cross-buns. Sadly, he never returned. Nevertheless every Good Friday his mother had a new bun waiting. Each year a new bun was added to ones she had kept from previous years. Sounds like my kind of place, old and kind of creepy.
Animal Burger
The Tea Hut on Blackheath-Since the l950s the hut has been used by passing motorists, lorry drivers, cabbies, locals, suburban clubbers on their way home from town, courting couples and motorbike and classic-car enthusiasts alike, the latter on Tuesday and Thursday nights only. It's open 24 hours a day, and serves Builders' Tea and the kind of hamburgers Ben Elton once talked of, made of hooves, snouts and eyelashes but heavenly when you've had 10 pints of Old Peculiar down the hill in a Lewisham boozer.
Eel & Pie Shop in Peckham-Didn't find anything with a quick Google and it is possible that this shop has gone the way of all good things, if you consider eels and pies good things. I'm sure you can still shops selling these odd sounding bits of business if you tried.
Canary Wharf-Canary Wharf is a thriving space and vibrant business district-at leas according to their website. I'm not sure that Joe had redevelopment in mind though, I'm guessing he liked it the way it was the last time he saw it, and who knows when that was. Seem to be a lot of tall building in London's Docklands these days. Not that there's anything wrong with that. . .
Battersea Park-Any place that has a museum on the grounds called The Pump House Gallery desevers at least a smal side trip. My own memories of Battersea Park are mainly my surprise at seeing the Peace Pagoda, I like the whole idea of a Buddhist shrine in the middle of an English garden. There are also lots of plants and animals as one might expect in a large city park.
Elephant & Castle-Elephant and Castle has always been an important traffic junction and was once known as “the Piccadilly of South London”. Another place that a lot of cool stuff seems to be happening. Food and Drink, Entertainment, Dancing, Shopping and old buildings to look at, who could ask for anything more? Of course, to me it looks kind of scary on the map, TWO round abouts that close together-oh the humanity.
Southwark Cathedral-The Church of England, what a great sound that has to it. They say there has been a church on this site since AD 606, got love those Brits, always have to remind us that while we study history they lived history. But that's alright, I love old churches just as I love all old buildings. Of course, it's hard to take them seriously after watching shows like The Vicar of Dibly all these years.
The West End-which is funny as Joe Queenan hates musicals in all forms and fashions, yet seems to go out of his way to attend them. Me thinks he doth protest too much. London's West End is London's Theater District, where all the misicals that Joes loves to hate are playing. But there's all kinds of other cool stuff in the area, China Town with Lee Ho Fooks, Mayfair, and Soho, all the places any well dressed American Werewolf would want to be seen.
And that wraps up my little mini London Tour by way of Things Joe Queenan Likes in London.
Joe Queenan's London
Red Dwarf Return to Earth
Channel Dave recently brought the intrepid crew of Red Dwarf to Earth, our Earth, it would seem. Our heroes, such as they are, discover a giant quid living in a water tank and naturally going diving to confront the monster. They pass out after being attacked and when they wake up there is a new hologram with a Russian accent telling everyone what to do.
The three segments of the story flash by pretty quickly, with a few laughs, but mostly running on pure nostalgia. It's good to see the guys again, there is something heartwarming about that solid British belief that no one ever changes-at least, no one in a sitcom ever changes.
With ample plugs for Dave Tv, Red Dwarf Return to Earth was fun, but seemed to be trying a bit too hard. I liked that whole little sequence where they were gunned down in Bladerunner style, but I'm afraid I never saw any Bladerunner influence on Red Dwarf. Maybe Alien, and perhaps the Marx Brothers, but not Bladerunner. The bit with the names engraved on the bullets was classic.
They all look a bit older, as should be expected, and the Cat seemed a little past his James Brown days. The rating were good, but I have never understood how the ratings work in Britain anyway. When shows can have a full season of 6 episodes, it seems odd that anything is ever canceled. So the rumors are now flying that maybe Bob Grant will rejoin Doug Naylor for one more series. We can always hope.
Dr Who Planet of The Dead
I'm gonna miss David Tennant playing Doctor Who. He has all that snap and pizazz and has a lot of great expressions. That's why I always loved Tom Baker-he was kind of a nutty Dr Who, but he was my first Doctor. In The Planet of The Dead The Doctor mention the Giant Robot to the current commander of UNIT, which was the first Dr Who episode with Tom Baker.
Anyway. Planet of The Dead starts our with a Pink Panther/Mission Impossible style cat burglary, hanging from a thin rope and stealing the item in question from above. Since this is the preferred method of priceless item theft you'd think the people running security would know to put those lasers on the top of the artifact as well.
One thing leads to another and our crook finds her way to a bus where The Doctor catches a ride and they end up on another planet. Just another day on London Double Decker. The Thief is the same actress who played the Bionic Woman in the horrid and thankfully brief remake. She was stunning in Doctor Who and I'm a bit sad she didn't hang around as his latest Companion.
I am still mildly surprised by the special effects of the New Doctor Who, well, not all that new any more, but still. The Monsters in Planet of The Dead looked really good, for pure CGI flying stingray kind of things. The Fly Men did hearken back to the good old days when Doctor Who costumes were little more than fancy dress outfits. I would have liked the trans-dimensional bus to have been a Route Master, but hey, you can't have everything.
There was danger and perils and we're all going to die moments-just like all Dr Who episodes. It was very good. There was also a woman who could see the future who warned The Doctor that The End Was Near. Well, we all know that, but it is still fun to have a bit of foreshadowing of the Doctor's demise.
UNIT is back and I loved the super genius, slightly an idiot scientist who helped the Doctor solve the wormwhole problems. His specialty seemed to be naming units of measurements after himself and his family. The Doctor saves the day and all is well. The Planet of The Dead was a fun show.
Still Thinking London Thoughts
I miss the hustle and bustle of London. The parts of London I like are all the Touristy bits. People who live in London don't spend much time round the tourist traps. I saw mostly other Americans in my travels to London, and I will likely see more Americans on my next trip, wherever that may be.
As always it is a question of money and time and sorting out what to see and what to do. Times are hard at the moment, but I am still reading my London Travel Guides and thinking about seeing those London Attractions that I missed out on and that are new since I was in London all those years ago.
There are still more London Thoughts and more London things to see and do.
The Pink Carnation Series
The Pink Carnation stories are a lot of fun. These are silly books for the most part, but I still like them. They tell the story of a modern day historian looking for the elusive Pink Carnation, a spy in the mold of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Lauren Willig goes one step further and creates an entire garden of flower named spies doing their skulduggery during the Napoleonic years. Which we see through the standard plot device of a hidden cache of documents revealing all secrets for our hero to find.
I have been listening to the audio books of the Pink Carnation Series and the reader, Kate Reading does a great job of giving voices to a large and ever growing cast of odd characters with all kinds of accents. Her American hero sounds, for the most part, like an American, and her modern Londoners sound like modern Londoners. I have no idea what English sounded like a couple of hundred years ago, but Kate Reading's take on it sounds good to me.
I'm listening to the Seduction of The Pink Carnation at the moment, which is spending a lot more time in Modern London and making a lot of fun of the American expat historian for not knowing such things as Working in The City means Working on Wall Street. The modern London story is a romance and a mystery, while the world of the Pink Carnation is pretty much a romance and a mystery with a touch of espionage tossed in for good measure. There are a lot of characters and I would advice that anyone tackling the series start at the beginning. The Secret History of The Pink Carnation was the first book.
These are fun books, neither pure romance nor pure cloak and dagger. Many of characters like to speak in a very refined and very round about manner and it can be fun to try and figure out what exactly they mean by what they are saying. The cast remains more or less the same and as with all series, that's just as it should be.
Being Human- Damned Flatmates
Filmed in Bristol, Being Human shows views of Clifton Suspension Bridge and Clifton Village. The characters' shared house is located in Totterdown, Bristol, and the Shakespeare pub shown in the closing minutes of the pilot is located on the same street in Totterdown as the rented house. The hospital that the characters work in is mostly filmed in and around the Bristol General Infirmary.-Wikipedia
Yeah, Bristol looks a lovely place to visit, except for all the damned vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Being Human is a BBC Three show about a group of flatmates who have more than their share of problems. Besides being a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost, there is this whole The World is About To Change thing going on. But our heroes are still trying to get on in the neighborhood and have all the locals around for tea and a nice chat about the great and powerful Vin Diesel.
The pilot of Being Human was really good, but they lost all of the cast except for the werewolf, George, who spends rather a lot of time naked and screaming-and not in a good way. Cast changes have been made for Mitchell, originally portrayed by Guy Flanagan, is now played by Aidan Turner, and Annie is now portrayed by Lenora Crichlow rather than Andrea Riseborough. Jason Watkins replaced Adrian Lester as a "more down-to-earth" version of Herrick. The character of Lauren also returned in the full series, with Annabel Scholey taking on the role from Dominique McElligott.
The cast changes alter the whole feel of the show, and in fact, I didn't even realize that the cop vampire was supposed to be Herrick. I still like the show, but I'm not sure I like Lauren changing from a woman fully in charge of herself to a loony loose cannon. There is also the odd idea that a vampire working in a hospital can't find a spare pint of blood somewhere to help with his blood lust. I like the idea of the ghost becoming a physical presence, though I am not sure where that story line might end up.
The first episode gave us a quick back story of Mitchell, George, and Annie, and then we are off and running. Time seems to travel pretty quickly in the land of Being Human, as George changed into a werewolf twice in episode two. There are a lot of threats from Herrick and Lauren and the poor ghost Annie has a relapse and doesn't want to go down to the Pub anymore. Meanwhile George is having trouble of his own with his new best mate, Tully, who is not exactly a good guy.
I like Being Human, but I could do with a few less shots of George standing around with his hands over his privates.
London in The Snow
The biggest snowfall to hit London in 18 years idled the city's trademark red buses and Underground trains Monday, stranded thousands of airline passengers, and raised the vexing question of why a predicted winter storm caught authorities so unprepared.
Transit officials had nearly a week to get ready, but they failed to keep things running normally in the capital, which was buried under more than four inches of snow overnight and another four inches in the afternoon. -AP
London doesn't get a lot snow, and it didn't take much to shut the old town down. We like to think that we are a modern people who can cope with anything, well, anything but snow. Here in Texas it doesn't take much more than an icy road to close down all the schools and keep people home from work. So not going out into the snow covered streets of London makes perfect sense to me. The silly people who are skiing and sliding down hills on cardboard, that sounds like a good plan to me.I have never understood people who live in places where there is snow all winter long. A nice dusting once in a while and enough to make a snowman is all the snow that I need. Facing those fresh mounds of snow everyday would drive me mad. Still, I think I would like London in the snow. Great photo ops for all those familiar sites that we seldom see with a layer of snow on top. A trip to Highgate Cemetery might be a good idea. All those moldy green tomes with a bit of white as an accent.
I'm not as big a fan of the cold as I used to be, so I'd likely just look out the window once in a while and catch up on some TV.
